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WESTON, W.Va. -- Chaylee Cole, a student at Fairmont State University, lost her part-time job in Weston last Friday after refusing to make telephone calls attacking Barack Obama.

McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee were paying for the calls, according to a "work paper" handed to Cole and her co-workers at the Weston offices of 1.2.1 Direct Response, a company based in Philadelphia.

"I was working at the call center," Cole said. "We got a campaign ad talking about how Obama had been part of terrorist attacks on the Capitol, the Pentagon and a judge's home and had ties with Bill Ayers.

"Last Thursday, I told them I did not want to read it," Cole said. "They said, 'Either you read it or you go home.'

"I told them I wasn't going to read it. They made me go home without pay for the rest of the day."

The "work paper" told callers to say:

"Hello, I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers [airs], whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans.

"And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democrat allies lack the judgment to lead our country.

"This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee."

Cole said, "We were just supposed to read that message and hang up. One of my other issues working there was that someone told me it didn't matter who picked up the phone, whether it was a 5-year-old or a 95-year-old. We should read the message."

Click here for more political coverage

WESTON, W.Va. -- Chaylee Cole, a student at Fairmont State University, lost her part-time job in Weston last Friday after refusing to make telephone calls attacking Barack Obama.

McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee were paying for the calls, according to a "work paper" handed to Cole and her co-workers at the Weston offices of 1.2.1 Direct Response, a company based in Philadelphia.

"I was working at the call center," Cole said. "We got a campaign ad talking about how Obama had been part of terrorist attacks on the Capitol, the Pentagon and a judge's home and had ties with Bill Ayers.

"Last Thursday, I told them I did not want to read it," Cole said. "They said, 'Either you read it or you go home.'

"I told them I wasn't going to read it. They made me go home without pay for the rest of the day."

The "work paper" told callers to say:

"Hello, I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers [airs], whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans.

"And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democrat allies lack the judgment to lead our country.

"This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee."

Cole said, "We were just supposed to read that message and hang up. One of my other issues working there was that someone told me it didn't matter who picked up the phone, whether it was a 5-year-old or a 95-year-old. We should read the message."

Cole, who started working at the center a few months earlier, returned to work on Friday.

"I talked to one of our 'coaches,' which is what our supervisors were called. I said I was unhappy with the situation and I quit," she said Tuesday.

Asked about the claims about Ayers and the "extreme leftist agenda," no one from the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C., returned telephone calls on Tuesday. Neither did Gail Gitcho, regional spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, based in Alexandria, Va.

Russell Andrews, a spokesman for 1.2.1 Direct Response, did not return several telephone calls made to his Philadelphia office on Tuesday.

1.2.1 Direct Response helps private companies and other organizations with fundraising, media coverage, advertising, marketing and publicity, according to its Web site.

That Web site reports that the company employs more than 550 people to make telephone calls, including 220 in Weston, 210 in Parkersburg, 170 in Media, Pa., and 150 in Philadelphia.

The McCain-Palin campaign has repeatedly tried to tie Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, to Obama. When Ayers was associated with Weather Underground, Obama was 8 years old.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton released a statement about Obama and Ayers reported by The Washington Post on Feb. 19.

"Sen. Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an 8-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost 40 years ago is ridiculous," Burton said.

Numerous other publications - including The New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and Time magazine - have also noted that Obama and Ayers never had a close relationship.

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 348-5164.